It should probably be noted changing the regulatory region of an RF device may result in you using illegal frequencies in your area depending on the combination of which region you're in and which region you're setting it to.
Yeah, not sure if author knows, they certainly don't share if they understand this or not, but these things aren't available because the some governments say those frequencies are illegal to use. Turkey for example has multiple frequencies under 5Ghz WiFi that is banned, hence consumer don't get to use 5Ghz WiFi. If you change that, you're breaking the law and you might get a visit, depending on how hardcore they are about the rules. Tend to be pretty strict and swift payback when it comes to using frequencies you shouldn't, as they're used for other stuff and easily seen when other traffic appears.
In addition to the other (great) reply pointing out the difference between 5G and 5Ghz, there is also the nuance of channels within the 5Ghz band. While the band may be lawfully used within a region, some channels within that band may be banned.
So it’s not enough to say “we have 5Ghz wifi here so it’s fine” because there are many channels within that band which may not all be treated equally.
It's wifi. The client and the base have to negotiate a channel they both can see. If the AP is compliant for it's region than you can assume the client will have to be as well.
BTW, I'm someone that use to by US region coded 802.11b wifi devices to get the 13th channel. Except for exploring, it was rarely useful since none of my other devices could connect on it.
If it's a station (client) then it's unlikely, as long as your APs are compliant.
With some chipsets it can end up being entirely ass-backwards - if you use an Intel WiFi chipset, a nearby AP can broadcast the wrong region and cripple your connectivity.
Outdated regulatory databases and firmware efforts by vendors have generally made both illegal and legal usage beyond ch 1-12 at 2.4GHz rather difficult.
This is about a WiFi client - on WiFi networks the AP station chooses frequency and manufacturers/driver writers fuck up legal frequency lists and regulatory codes all the time.
``The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall. . . The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely.''
``The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment.''
Any device inside my network that talks to the outside world is a potential vulnerability. TV manufacturers aren't exactly known for their stellar development practices, and dodgy apps on TVs are being used as VPN exit points for cybercrime or scraping. Then there's the part where smart TVs are adding ads to their home screens and other random places.
I want my monitors and TVs to be completely dumb. Just a display, the necessary circuitry to plug the display into a bunch of input ports, maybe the necessary circuitry to function as a KVM switch, and nothing else.
Nice workaround. Feels pretty stupid that you have to do that. Sounds like they choose the easy way to comply with the regulations. They could probably just have blocked certain frequency ranges.
Although I'm still fully convinced that TVs just got worse for the consumer since they became "smart". My extended family had to replace perfectly good TVs three times because the new version of a streaming app did not work anymore.
Add stuff like running ads on an expensive TV, running spyware that sends screenshots even of your HDMI source back to the company (possibly exposing your passwords and everything), the continuous nagging about new versions and ToS (with dark patterns to accept sending voice data home), and I feel like the only sane option is to never ever give internet connection to these TVs. Use a separate device for streaming.
Recently when I started an LG TV, there was an unskippable ad for a local delivery service. I pressed the home button and it told me "Smart services not available right now". After the ad I could go to the home menu.
If this was my own TV it would have been thrown in the trash.
I don't get it, why can't they just change the region in the settings?
I was able to on my LG. Nice TV, worst firmware ever. It had an issue with Wifi. It basically will not connect once or so a week. You needed to change, you guess it, the region. So I will keep changing from Germany to Spain to Ireland to Germany to Etc. I sent pictures, videos, emails, links to youtube videos to LG support, they wouldn't care, they would just deny it. In the end I bought a Fire TV Max and that was it. But what a horrible support experience LG never again.
Since you have ssh access to webos, how is it to remove the telemetry, ads and other such? Is webos better than a generic TCL for such antics? The TCL can be rooted and is android based but I’m not up to date on current rom configurations, etc.
My TV is several years old at this point, but I've never had a single ad show up on it. Telemetry is easily blocked via DNS filters and the homebrew software blocks system updates.
Modern versions of Apple TV, Plex, Disney, etc all work fine. The only time I ever watch YouTube is on the TV because it has SponsorBlock baked into it so I never see an ad there either.
I wonder how long it will be until TVs have some sort of cellular modem built in. Maybe some form of LPWAN - your TV may not be connected to the internet, but odds are there's one in range that is.
I was playing around with LG TV homebrew a while back. Still have the same TV, and in the age of AI, I'm considering putting a coding agent to work on a dump of the filesystem to see what it'd take to run stock Linux on it.
There's an active Discord server (I know, I know...) for LG's jailbreak community and there are some incredibly talented folk on there who know the ins and outs of webOS to a crazy level. I'd recommend checking it out if you're interested in that sort of thing.
Not sure if you can post the full link but what's the /invitecode for the server? I'd actually be interested in joining since I've been interested in this
Android had (has?) a similar issue with the hotspot feature where it will not turn on in a region where 5 GHz is more regulated than in the US but will also not give you any warning about it.
Well, I have Sony and Samsung (both middle east regions) but they dont have any restrictions in these areas. I only see these kinda quirks with LG all the times.
Linux's wireless-regdb has proper 5G regulatory information for at least SA, CY, EG, QA, at least since 2017, just checked. The TV in the repo is 2025 year model.
Are you sure? According to wiki, there are plenty allowed 5GHz channels in Turkey.
So it’s not enough to say “we have 5Ghz wifi here so it’s fine” because there are many channels within that band which may not all be treated equally.
BTW, I'm someone that use to by US region coded 802.11b wifi devices to get the 13th channel. Except for exploring, it was rarely useful since none of my other devices could connect on it.
With some chipsets it can end up being entirely ass-backwards - if you use an Intel WiFi chipset, a nearby AP can broadcast the wrong region and cripple your connectivity.
Outdated regulatory databases and firmware efforts by vendors have generally made both illegal and legal usage beyond ch 1-12 at 2.4GHz rather difficult.
Which could still be illegal, but I don't think anyone will realistically investigate a low-power device sending a few packets occasionally.
The majority of content that people watch is distributed over the internet, so our TVs are connected thus.
``The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment.''
Any device inside my network that talks to the outside world is a potential vulnerability. TV manufacturers aren't exactly known for their stellar development practices, and dodgy apps on TVs are being used as VPN exit points for cybercrime or scraping. Then there's the part where smart TVs are adding ads to their home screens and other random places.
I want my monitors and TVs to be completely dumb. Just a display, the necessary circuitry to plug the display into a bunch of input ports, maybe the necessary circuitry to function as a KVM switch, and nothing else.
Although I'm still fully convinced that TVs just got worse for the consumer since they became "smart". My extended family had to replace perfectly good TVs three times because the new version of a streaming app did not work anymore.
Add stuff like running ads on an expensive TV, running spyware that sends screenshots even of your HDMI source back to the company (possibly exposing your passwords and everything), the continuous nagging about new versions and ToS (with dark patterns to accept sending voice data home), and I feel like the only sane option is to never ever give internet connection to these TVs. Use a separate device for streaming.
If this was my own TV it would have been thrown in the trash.
I was able to on my LG. Nice TV, worst firmware ever. It had an issue with Wifi. It basically will not connect once or so a week. You needed to change, you guess it, the region. So I will keep changing from Germany to Spain to Ireland to Germany to Etc. I sent pictures, videos, emails, links to youtube videos to LG support, they wouldn't care, they would just deny it. In the end I bought a Fire TV Max and that was it. But what a horrible support experience LG never again.
Modern versions of Apple TV, Plex, Disney, etc all work fine. The only time I ever watch YouTube is on the TV because it has SponsorBlock baked into it so I never see an ad there either.
Although like OP, if I ever lose the ability to run root, then that's the day I look for a new TV (lord have mercy).
[1] https://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-wireless/msg262022.html
Then almost overnight. They have been making very awful decisions across all layers.
Just another case of enshittification or something else?